Your Halo Better Gleam
by No Holds
Summary: There's a hard swallow nesting in the back of your throat, because it's so beautiful, she's so beautiful, smiling shyly, eyes ablaze, and you're both so young and so scared and you've never held anything as sacred as her hands, here, in the golden light. Korra and Asami, after the finale.


They're taking pictures of the man from God/I hops his cassock's clean/The burden of being a holy fellow's/your halo better gleam, better gleam.

There's a hard swallow nesting in the back of your throat, because it's so beautiful, _she's_ so beautiful, smiling shyly, eyes ablaze, and you're both so young and so scared and you've never held anything as sacred as her hands, here, in the golden light.

She looks you in the eye like no one else ever did, those brilliant eyes of hers seeing deeper into you then anyone else ever had, and her face softens, and you feel your anxiety melt, feel your stomach go hot and your chest get tight and soft and, oh. This is what it feels like to fall in love.

You smile back at her and take a step, the spirit world enveloping you, and you feel her squeeze your hands, once, reverent.

You tumble into the spirit world on hands and knees, soft blue grass breaking your fall, the sun warm and the sky brilliant, the world gone Technicolor with spirit energy.

Korra falls after you, managing a little more grace, and flops onto the grass by your side, smiling in a way you can't quite read.

And this feeling in your chest- it's light and fragile, like sugar glass, all spun thin and beautiful and breakable, and when you look at her you feel like you can't breathe.

Then Korra smiles wider, and the tenderness in her eyes just about crushes you, and she bridges the gap between your bodies.

You are twenty years old, or near enough as makes no difference, and you are kissing the Avatar.

Living with Korra had been strange at first, letting people assume you were just roommates, fighting over shared space and different habits,

But every time you kiss her you still feel twenty years old and fresh in love and breathless, and you love her so much sometimes you feel asthmatic, a crushing weight on your chest, an affection your body can't possibly contain.

And one morning after tripping over her unwashed laundry you'd made a chore wheel, half passive aggressive and half earnest, and when she'd seen it she'd laughed like spring and smiled like the summer sky, and you'd gone weak at the knees because you love this girl. You really do.

And the chore wheel says this week it's your turn to do the dishes.

You're humming under your breath, elbow-deep in soapy water, mind miles away.

"That's a pretty song." Korra says, and you turn to thank her and-

She's down on one knee with a ring in one hand and a necklace in the other. She's smiling _so_ brightly, and her words are church organ, enormous in the reverent silence.

"Marry me, Asami?"

It was never a question. Your stomach goes cavernous and you feel like you want to cry or sing or laugh or-

Or you don't know what, only that there's butterflies in your stomach and her, here, with love in her eyes, and that's enough.

Always has been.

The next day you leave the house with a ring on your finger and a betrothal necklace at your throat and the media _swarms_ you, beating at the doors of your joy with pitchforks and pointed questions.

You'd talked about this, last night, wrapped in the safety of her arms, where the world was just distant lights and the sound of cars outside your window.

Now- now it was too much, the gunshots of their questions ringing loud and close against your ears and-

You know what you have to do, take a deep breath, remember the church-footed silence, uncertain and sacred, in the moments after she'd proposed, the way you'd been together three years and suddenly every step was holy, the way she'd bumped into you standing up to tie the necklace on and your nose had bled and you'd just stood in the kitchen, arms still sudsy from the dishes, holding your nose and laughing, because you were young and in love and it had always been a little like this.

"So Miss Sato, who's the lucky fella, huh?"

And you say "There isn't one." The reporters all stop dead, and you can practically feel their minds collective minds grind to a confused halt, hanging in space like stalled airplanes, and into the silence their questions have left, you say;

"I'm engaged to the Avatar." It's the first time you say it out loud and you feel schoolgirl crush, still, after all these years.

"Avatar Korra the Avatar." One of them says, blankly, and you nod and push past him because you're out of milk, and Korra is waiting for you back home, and you'd really like cereal for breakfast.

There are protesters the next day. You wish, for the first time, that she wasn't the Avatar and you weren't the head of Future Industries, because then maybe people wouldn't _care_ quite so much, and the warm glow of new engagement should never be broken by hundreds of people who wish you dead.

But Korra _is_ the Avatar, and you _are_ the head of future industries, and oh, well. That's who you are. Always have been.

You agreed to marry The Avatar as well as Korra, and so you agreed to marry this, too.

Even though it makes your stomach feel like lead when you look off your balcony, see all those people who hate you waving signs, shouting.

You wonder, idly, what you've done.

They tried to kill Korra three times before your first meeting with the press, and part of you wants to beg her to stay inside, safe and sound in your arms, but that isn't who she is.

Isn't who you are, either, and the next time she heads out onto the battlefield of the streets your arm is looped through hers.

And, God, she's still beautiful. Circles under her eyes and messy hair and stress lines, and you kiss her on the street corner and feel like sunlight through stained glass, bright and airy and beautiful.

She blinks, once, and you say "I love you so much." And _she_ kisses _you_, and you feel her smile against your mouth.

You don't let go of her hand until you are safe at home again.

You're sitting in the kitchen one night, the soft yellow light of late evening painting everything gold leaf, watching Korra make dinner, the muscles in her back shifting as she chops veggies. You start to doze off, half-lidded and content with the routine of it, and after a while the rhythmic chop-chop-chop of her knife on the cutting board goes dead. She turns to you, stark confusion on her honest face.

"I can't figure it out." She says, wiping her hands.

"What?"

"Why they hate us. Me." She says, and it's true, it's mostly her. They hate her. Besmirching the Avatar legacy. Dishonoring the founder of Republic City.

"They want you to be perfect." You say, and her shoulders droop, and you wonder how many of them actually _know_ Korra, that half-mouthed, tooth flashing smile of hers, the way she cuts her own hair, how she looks first thing in the morning, bathed in soft early sunlight, eyes warm, love in her face.

You wonder if they'd hate her then.

You think no one could.

"But-" she says, uncertainly.

"Remember after Harmonic Convergence? How everyone hated you because you couldn't fix Republic City?"

She frowns. "Yeah, but-"

"It's the same now. You're the Avatar, so they want you to be perfect. And this,"

You hold up your ring.

"It's not perfect."

"Yes, it is." She says, and kisses you hard, hands in your hair, and your stomach goes molten, and you kiss her back, and when you break to breathe she loops her fingers through yours, looks at you with those brilliant eyes of hers, and there's such _love_ in them.

"Yes, it is," she says again, fiercely. "Even if they can't see it."

And your chest goes tight and your face goes hot and you're young and afraid and breathlessly in love, and you lean your forehead against hers and _grin,_ and it's been three years, and you're still not sure there's anything holier then these quiet moments with her, soft and timeless, and you know you'll never hold anything as sacred as her hands, here, in the golden light.


End file.
